Milton, Spenser and The Chronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. Lewis NovelsIn 1950, Clive Staples Lewis published the first in a series of children's stories that became The Chronicles of Narnia. The now vastly popular Chronicles are a widely known testament to the religious and moral principles that Lewis embraced in his later life. What many readers and viewers do not know about the Chronicles is that a close reading of the seven-book series reveals the strikingly effective influences of literary sources as diverse as George MacDonald's fantastic fiction and the courtly love poetry of the High Middle Ages. Arguably the two most influential sources for the series are Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen and John Milton's Paradise Lost. Lewis was so personally intrigued by these two particular pieces of literature that he became renowned for his scholarly studies of both Milton and Spenser. This book examines the important ways in which Lewis so clearly echoes The Faerie Queen and Paradise Lost, and how the elements of each work together to convey similar meanings. Most specifically, the chapters focus on the telling interweavings that can be seen in the depiction of evil, female characters, fantastic and symbolic landscapes and settings, and the spiritual concepts so personally important to C.S. Lewis. |
From inside the book
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... nature because Lewis was himself a Christian, and because his books feature British protagonists because Lewis was himself British, the Chronicles echo Milton and Spenser naturally as a result of Lewis's lifelong appreciation of their ...
... nature, must acknowledge that “his boldest generalizations have incited some of the best subsequent reading of Spenser” and that “The positive side of this [The Allegory of Love] was that it made medieval and Renaissance literature ...
... natural parallels, since Perelandra revolves around a prelapsarian Adam and Eve (Tor and Trinidil) who, on Venus, succeed where Milton's (and the Bible's) primal couple fails. Because of the subject matter, Lewis logically relied on ...
... nature of such villains is what makes them most frightening. Rather than trying to scare us with the unfamiliar, they evoke fear and power simply because they embody all that in the core of our beings we already fear. Whether 18 MILTON ...
... nature has been exposed, and the pretext of a pleasant sleigh ride is discarded in favor of deadly silence and stealth. Once her hand has been revealed she is no longer concerned about making herself appear royal and harmless. Like ...
Contents
17 | |
The Depiction of Evil Men Mortals Monsters and Misled Protagonists | 51 |
Girls Whose Heads Have Something Inside Them The Characterization of Women | 77 |
An Inside Bigger Than Its Outside Setting and Geography | 107 |
Knowing Him Better There Spirituality and Belief | 135 |
Conclusion | 159 |
Chapter Notes | 163 |
Bibliography | 177 |
Index | 183 |